Ruling almost certainly prevents law from going into effect for November election, but state Attorney General Greg Abbott said he will appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON — A federal court on Thursday rejected a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.

A three-judge panel in Washington unanimously ruled that the law imposes “strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor” and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.

The decision involves an increasingly contentious political issue: a push, largely by Republican-controlled legislatures and governors’ offices, to impose strict identification requirements on voters. Texas’ voter ID rules, approved in 2011, had been widely cheered by conservatives statewide.

Republicans around the country are aggressively seeking similar requirements in the name of stamping out voter fraud. Democrats, with support from a number of studies, say fraud at the polls is largely non-existent and that Republicans are simply trying to disenfranchise minorities, poor people and college students — all groups that tend to back Democrats.

Thursday’s ruling almost certainly prevents the Texas law from going into effect for the November election, but state Attorney General Greg Abbott said he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court “where we are confident we will prevail.”

In the Texas case, the Justice Department called several lawmakers, all of them Democrats, who said they detected a clear racial motive in the push for the voter ID law. Lawyers for Texas argued that the state was simply tightening its laws. Texas called experts who demonstrated that voter ID laws had a minimal effect on turnout. Republican lawmakers testified that the legislation was the result of a popular demand for more election protections.

The ruling comes two days after a separate federal three-judge panel ruled that Texas’ Republican dominated state Legislature did not draw new congressional and state Senate district maps “without discriminatory purposes.”

“In a matter of two days, the state of Texas has had its dirty laundry aired out across the national stage,” said Democratic state Rep. Trey Martinez Fisher, chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Conference. “This deals with the despicable issues of discrimination, voter suppression, these are things that we’re not proud of.”

The judges in the voter ID case are Rosemary Collyer, an appointee of former President George W. Bush; Robert Wilkins, an appointee of President Barack Obama; and David Tatel, an appeals court judge appointed by former President Bill Clinton.

Tatel, writing for the panel, called the Texas law “the most stringent in the nation.” He said it would impose a heavier burden on voters than a similar law in Indiana, previously upheld by the Supreme Court, and one in Georgia, which the Justice Department allowed to take effect without objection.

The decision comes the same week that South Carolina’s strict photo ID law is on trial in front of another three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse. A court ruling in the South Carolina case is expected before the November election.

During an appearance in Houston in July, Attorney General Eric Holder said Texas’ photo ID requirement amounts to a poll tax, a term that harkens back to the days after Reconstruction when blacks across the South were stripped of their right to vote. The attorney general told the NAACP that many Texas voters seeking to cast ballots would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain the required photo ID.

Last December, South Carolina’s voter ID requirement became the first such law to be rejected by the Justice Department in nearly 20 years. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the attorney general made a “very serious error” by blocking it. Romney said the requirement is easy to meet and will stem voter fraud.

“We don’t want people voting multiple times” and “you can get a photo ID free from your state. You can get it at the time you register to vote,” Romney said.

Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, the Justice Department’s chief civil rights enforcer, has said the Texas and South Carolina photo ID laws will hinder many citizens, particularly minorities, in exercising their right to vote.

Across much of the South, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is viewed as an overly intrusive burden on the states — a relic once used by the Justice Department’s civil rights division to remedy discriminatory practices that no longer exist. Under Section 5 of the act, Texas, South Carolina and all or parts of 14 other states must obtain clearance from the Justice Department’s civil rights division or a federal court before carrying out changes in elections. The states are mostly in the South and all have a history of discriminating against blacks, American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives or Hispanics.

Last year, new voter ID laws passed in Kansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island and Wisconsin. In addition to Texas and South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee tightened existing voter ID laws to require photo ID. Governors in Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire and North Carolina vetoed new photo ID laws.

This year, Pennsylvania enacted its own law and voting-rights groups who filed suit in an effort to stop it are appealing to the state Supreme Court. A hearing is scheduled for Sept. 13 in Philadelphia. The Republican administration of Gov. Tom Corbett says a U.S. Justice Department inquiry into the state’s tough new voter identification law is politically motivated. The department is requesting the state’s voter registration list, plus any database of registered voters who lack a valid photo ID that the law requires voters to show before their ballots can be counted.

In Wisconsin, a county judge ruled in July that the state’s new photo ID law impairs the right to vote. In an appeal, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican, is arguing that the ID law doesn’t impose an undue burden because voters can get free state ID cards.

Election administrators and academics who monitor the issue said in-person fraud is rare because someone would have to impersonate a registered voter and risk arrest. A report by the Brennan Center for Justice determined that new voting restrictions could suppress the votes of more than 5 million young, minority, low-income and disabled voters.

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Associated Press writers Mark Sherman in Washington and Will Weissert in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.

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The feds cannot force people to have a Social Security card or a Medicare card to present when needing assistance. They will just have to take the person's word on it that they are on Social Security and give them help.

Asking for a simple ID to vote is neither racist nor equivalent to a poll tax, and saying so minimizes the hardship of the people in that era who had to deal with those as real issues, not extremist hyperbole.

If it's important enough to a legal citizen to vote, then they have plenty of time to arrange to get a simple state ID. If they're not citizens they shouldn't be voting, and anyone who feels that's racist can feel free to start the movement to amend the Constitution.

The Republicans are right on this issue, whether the real motivation is racist or not. A person has to be a citizen to vote in this country and the honor system isn't the way to enforce it.

So discrimination is okay as long as it is the right kind of discrimination. Recall that the plan originally proposed by the Texas Legislature was reviewed and rewritten by a court in San Antonio, so it's judges disagreeing with judges. One has to ask why would anyone not want to verify the identity of anyone wanting to exercise one of the most important rights of citizens in this country?

The federal government does not charge for social security cards and for medicare cards. I was able to get my medicare card over the phone at no cost.

If you are under 60, the state of Texas charges you $16.00 for a 6 year ID. (Unless you fall under CCP 62 and then it is $21.00 per year).

This is a poll tax. It may not discriminate against blacks or hispanics in particular, but it discriminates against the poor. The last time I checked the constitution, it did not say you had to be wealthy to vote.

It is possible to be a U. S. citizen and not have a drivers license or other form of photo ID.

I would think that if the state of Texas wants a voter ID law, all they have to do is issue photo ID's at no charge and then there would be no discrimination or poll tax.

I went to the state website and they only listed fee exemptions for disabled veterans. Since that is the only place I found that issued state photo id's, I used that as a guide. I just double checked and no mention was made of free id's. Perhaps that is because the law is not in affect.

That provision appears to be on hold pending the resolution of the lawsuit. Texas offered it as part of the voter ID law should it be upheld on appeals. I think this was from a Houston Chronicle article but I don't have the link. In the article they said that the free ID wasn't good enough because then people would have to come up with a birth certificate.

All you idiots who advocate succession are forgetting you are outnumbered and outgunned by the Mexicans. Texas would be a state of Mexico in a heartbeat as it once was. No need to worry about U.N. invaders. The reason the Texas Republic joined the Union was protection from Mexico.

Have read some suggestions to require a psychological exam to vote to weed out the tea party wackos. I disagree. Even the mentally ill should be able to vote, once. Good luck on your plan. I will look for your picture on the news.

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx

don't you have to have documentation proving who you are? What is the cost to obtain the documentation? If you don't have acceptable proof of who you are, can you obtain the documentation you need to help you prove who you are to get and ID? If so, how many layers of bureaucracy, and how much paperwork is required to prove who that you are who you say you are?

I'm not being facetious. I really want to know and understand what the barriers to voter registration might be.

I haven't had to go though the process of proving who I am without having the necessary documents to obtain the necessary documents to prove that I am who I am.

I have found that the online information for obtaining a state ID was not up to date, when we got one for our son, so it took two 20 mile trips, the one where we found out that documents not listed online were required for the ID, and then the one to take back all the necessary documents. Then there was the two or three hours waiting in line to get the ID.

It wasn't easy, or quick, and I am educated, had transportation, and had referenced the available online resources.

I don't know about anyone else, but I dread any person to person interactions with the DMV.

You have some good points, but I wonder how many of those complaining about getting some ID to vote have managed to properly apply for benefits like Medicare/Medicaid, driver's licenses, food stamps, unemployment compensation, etc. I suspect the ones squealing the loudest are those who can't provide the appropriate documentation.

If you have run the gauntlet of the act of voting, you will realize they keep good records and even if you were to succeed in voting more than once, you would be dragged in chains by the Texas Attorney General before the federal appeals court as living proof of an example of the need for Voter ID, the lone example.

When I was just out of the army, I lived in Houston and my family lived in Dallas. My mother had a woman work for her who was in her 60's and who was born in Mexia. She had a driver's license, but did not have a birth certificate. She asked me if I would stop in Fairfield at the county courthouse when I drove to Dallas to see if I could find her birth in the records so she could apply for a birth certificate and social security. I made three stops at the courthouse and never was able to find a record of her birth. She certainly was born in Texas and was a citizen. Since she was born in the early 1900's she evidently did not need a birth certificate in those days to get a driver's license.

It is not easy for some people to get the documentation required to get an ID card. Yet, she voted in every election and she only voted once. And, more importantly, she was no less a good citizen than A 1st.

Feaco knows everything. He knows all about me even though he has never met me and does not know my profession or my life experiences. He would know if she voted more than once in an election and he would be honest and tells us.

"Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own." Jonathan Swift "I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members." Groucho Marx

Texas had the option of taking it before the federal agency that was designated by law to rule on it--The Justice Department. They chose instead this route. The ruling was unanimous and included a moderate? Republican. You could probably throw a rock into a crowd of federal judges and be assured of hitting one that thought the Texas Voter ID was bad law.

So in 2011 the lege gave us voter ID, shooting hogs from the air, cuts in many areas of the budget, and sanctuary cities. Why the hell did they even meet? The state had a huge deficit and the lege focused on abortion and this crap. What a waste of time and money. These bozos (mostly male) need to get cracking on some of our citizens real needs and issues.

To coment on here you must register with thr AJ. The AJ states in its terms of service "You must register using your real name and contact information."

So I'm guessing there has never ever been a post made on here by someone who did not use there real name and contact information when registering. I'm also guessing someone has never ever used multiabe screen names to post on the same topic or to use these multiable screen names so they could vote someone's comments up or down more than once.